New services like IPTV (i.e. television services received via e.g. the internet or similar networks) and cloud computing require increasing bandwidth in the access network. To provide data rates around 1 Gb/s via copper lines, the available bandwidth must be used efficiently and therefore, fast spectrum management is required for future access networks.
Spectrum management in this respect relates for example to the assignment of transmit power to different communication connections, for example wireline connections, and/or the distribution of transmit power between various carriers, i.e. transmit frequencies, used on a single communication connection.
The static operation of existing digital subscriber line technologies like VDSL may therefore be insufficient for some applications. The existing continuous adaptive schemes like SRA (seamless rate adaptation) for VDSL (Very high bit rate digital subscriber line) are too inflexible to adapt to the system to changing data rate requirements of the subscribers.